One of the things that most makes a Breguet a Breguet is its Dial – the combination of fine, elongated blued-steel hands with a painstakingly engine-turned dial say “Breguet” instantly to most watch enthusiasts, to the point that any other brand which adopts the two design traits stands an excellent chance of being dismissed (with some justice) for plagiarism. However, Breguet also offers other dial options and some of its most crowd-pleasing designs come with fired enamel dials, rather than engraved metal ones. While in London this week, we had a chance to see one especially attractive example of an alternative dial treatment from Breguet: a Réveil du Tsar wristwatch with a fired enamel dial, which was originally introduced as a boutique-only special edition in 2011.
This was an interesting, and even provocative, choice for a watch to receive an enamel dial, as one of the main talking points of the original dial was the very complex patterns of guilloché engraving – it was something of a showpiece for the art as practiced in the modern era at Breguet. There were a total of seven different patterns: clous de Paris, satiné circulaire, sauté piqué, pointes de diamante, vieux pannier, décor flammé, and grain d’orge circulaire (and I wish I could say that I did that from memory, but 2003 is longer ago than I ever thought it would be – I had to look it up). It was and is quite a tour de force of dial design; absolutely the essence of classic Breguet watch design. The enamel dial version, however, offers a very different, but possibly even more attractive take on the Réveil du Tsar.
The Réveil du Tsar has a lot to say, and the only possible knock against the original is that the dial and dial furniture are not ideally disposed from a legibility standpoint. The combination of a second time zone display, alarm function, 24 hour dial, indication of the power reserve, date, and running seconds display make for an indisputably busy watch. Complaining about this, however, is a bit like standing in the palace of Versailles and griping that its lines lack the lean, clean appeal of the Seagram Building. Man doth not live by guilloché alone, but he also doth not live by legibility alone, and the ornateness of the original R. du T. is not something to be grudgingly accepted; rather, it’s the whole point of the watch. The enamel dial, I think, is therefore best viewed not as rejection or retraction of the original design, but rather as a stylistic alternative in which the limpid iridescence of the blued steel hands against subtle warmth of the enamel, substitutes for the more extroverted ebullience of all those different types of engine-turning.
The watch overall still feels to me, many years after its introduction, like something of a perfect watch; at 39mm in diameter and with a quite slim profile, it seems instantly at home on the wrist – there’s no period of acclimatization needed and when you put it on you really do start to feel that maybe all the retro-grouches who grumble that any watch bigger than 40mm ought to be show the door, might be onto something. It very much bucks the tendency complicated watches have shown to get bulkier and bulkier over the last decade or so and though a lot of us have gotten used to this, the Réveil du Tsar is a watch compared to which an uncomfortable number of talking-piece, modern complicated timepieces start to look bloated and ostentatious (and not in a good way – it is possible for a watch to be bloated and ostentatious in a good way, but it takes a lot of cojones to make it work, both on the part of the maker and the wearer).
Part of what keeps the Ref. 5707ER grounded solidly in Breguet’s design language is the presence of elements like the coin-edge case, Breguet hands, and the relative slimness and modest diameter of the watch. It seems obviously designed, despite its visual and mechanical complexity, and aural beauty (the alarm rings on a gong similar to one you’d find in a minute repeater) to be a daily-wear timepiece, in the same way that despite their cost and complexity, Breguet’s garde-temps pocket watches were carried daily (and happily) by his clients in the early 19th century. It feels very much a continuation of the master’s work – like something he could have made in the 21st century if he were still, through some miracle, at the bench.
The Réveil du Tsar 5707ER is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable watches I’ve had on in a long time – Breguet really hit the sweet spot for a certain kind of watchmaking with this one, and it’s a watch that couldn’t have been made by any other manufacturer. There is a lyricism in the 5707ER that seems more French than Swiss – the ability to deliver this much information this elegantly was one of the things that made Breguet famous; as George Daniels once wrote, the dial of this sort of watch has to be handled very carefully if it’s not to end up looking like a gas meter. It’s an example of modern Breguet at its best, and though fifteen years have passed since it first debuted, it looks as fresh and interesting today as it did a decade and a half ago.
$40,200 as shown, in a 39mm rose gold case. Movement, 519F, 12 lignes, with 45 hour power reserve. 18k gold rose-engine engraved rotor; adjusted in 5 positions. Alarm, ringing on a circular gong; time, date, second time zone, 24-hour indication, indication of the power reserve. For more info, visit Breguet.com.
The post Hands-On: The Breguet Le Réveil Du Tsar Reference 5707ER With Enamel Dial appeared first on Men's Lifestyle.
